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3rd out of 31 books
—
11 voters
People
by
Peter Spier
With updated statistics and current geographical information, People by Peter Spier, first published in 1980, is a solid addition to any collection. Detailed facts and figures as well as a focus on the issue of diversity make this a great book for reference and a basis for discussion, both at home and in the classroom.
Paperback, 48 pages
Published
April 1st 1988
by Doubleday Books for Young Readers
(first published 1979)
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(showing
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635)
We still own the battered beaten-up copy of this homage to humanity that our two daughters returned to so often that it needed patching up with a judicious amount of sticky tape. A wholehearted celebration of diversity, it devotes pages to appearance, homes, food, clothes, pastimes, jobs, pets, feasts and holidays, beliefs, language, a little history, and most of all, throughout it all, to 'People everywhere. And all different.' It was first published in 1981, and now that I took it out again to...more
A beautiful, insightful look at cultural diversity across the world in people's appearance, habits, personalities, languages, religions, and other features, written for children but with an adult's keen perception of human nature. It is densely illustrated in Spier's inimitable style, which could provide hours of scrutiny and consideration by young readers. His incisive visual portrayal of the human experience gives far greater meaning to the descriptive text that accompanies the pictures. This...more
People is a descriptive story written about people all over the world who are different from one another. The main character in this story is everyone. The author describes to the reader the different types of home lives that exist in the world. As a literacy, teacher I would use the text to teach students new vocabulary (ex. dialects, forbidden, and variants). In addition, People is also a great for students to learn how to communicate by using sign language. The illustrator Spier does an amazi...more
Jun 07, 2009
Sara Kearns
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone with a child and anyone without a child
I bought this for one of my nephews about ten years ago, and loved it so much I bought one for myself. Then I gave that one to one of my neices: it is absolutely one of the best children's books I've ever read, with beautifully painted illustrations, and a wonderfully validating feel to it. It celebrates children and all kinds of diversity with a global view that derives joy from all sorts of things about people, from ears and noses to homes and rituals. It encourages curiosity by including thin...more
I couldn't have predicted that my 9-year-old son would love this as much as he did. This was a read-aloud (more like an examination & exploration than reading) that spanned a week, and those moments were some that I will cherish more than anything else this summer so far. He has never been more engrossed in anything than this simplistic but brilliantly detailed presentation of "people": how we ARE. Spier shows us how people around the world vary in dress, ideas, systems (my son was amazed at...more
I got this book for Christmas when I was four years old. It was so influential in helping me learn about other cultures and the importance of being open-minded. At first, I thought a lot of the people in the book were funny because they were different than me. I laughed at the idea of sun worshippers, I laughed at the natives with bones through their noses, and thought it was stupid that some people wouldn't eat "normal" foods like pig and fish. But as I got older, I realized that having this bo...more
Apr 10, 2013
Vanessa Easley
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
around-the-world,
being-yourself,
clothing,
culture,
careers,
food,
worry,
accepting-others,
concept-book,
creative,
diversity,
different-world,
dancing,
informational,
history,
race,
picture-book,
travel,
societal-classes,
hard-times,
family,
holidays,
games,
lesson-learned,
happiness,
village,
poverty
This is an amazing book that can teach kids diversity in every type of way. It doesn't just focus on race or religion which many books like this do. This book gets into shapes sizes celebrations dress, food, clothes, activities, games and much more from around the world. It sends the message that we should love and accept everyone because we are all different but we all deserve to be treated well. I would love to use this book in the classroom with students to give them a better understanding or...more
A brilliant idea for it's time, this book is distressingly out of date. One could excuse the use of drawings (Spier's specialty) instead of photographs, but the factual information is problematic. The first page reads:
"We all know there are lots and lots of people in the world-and many millions more each year.
There are over 4,000,000,000 human beings on earth, and if it takes you an hour to read this book, there will be 4,000 more!
By the year 2000, there will be 6,000,000,000 people on earth. If...more
"We all know there are lots and lots of people in the world-and many millions more each year.
There are over 4,000,000,000 human beings on earth, and if it takes you an hour to read this book, there will be 4,000 more!
By the year 2000, there will be 6,000,000,000 people on earth. If...more
I risk the banality of superlative in saying this is the ultimate book on promoting internationality, but I've yet to see its equal. It tackles every possible subject under the vast category of cultural diversity - differences in physical appearances, clothes, food, holidays, games, homes, pets, beauty standards, beliefs, alphabets, jobs, tastes in art, etc. It also gives both xenophobia and the homogeneous construct their due beatings. (Domestic issues such as differences in gender, sexuality,...more
While I love this book and think it's great for discussing cultural diversities in the world and around us I do not think it would be good for the classroom because it has a picture of Adam and Eve not dressed in the Garden of Eden. If I were to read this to students though, I would discuss differences among people, both personal and outside appearances. We could make a graph of all the students with different color hair and eyes in the class to introduce graphing in a math lesson.
This book identifies ways that people are alike and different from each other and gives great examples, both in the text and in the illustrations, although those two don’t always parallel each other, as one would expect. The book is almost as large as a big book, with huge pages and brilliantly large watercolors. The information challenges children to think about what shapes their culture and how to be open to learning about others’ cultures.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book. It is about embracing one anothers' differences and explaining how people are similar and different in many different ways. I love the illustrations and examples of the different cultures and variety of people the book displays. This book would be great for any grade level (probably not pre-kindergarten though because it may be a little too advanced but maybe not depending on your students)
1 like · like · see review
Jan 28, 2013
Casey
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
diversity,
family,
history,
illistrations-i-love,
individuality,
k-3,
non-fiction,
transition
I love this book so much! It may be a bit dated, but it is an amazing culture exploration book for kids. It might not be the greatest to read aloud, but it would be a fantastic resource in a classroom(any grade!) Shows some traditional representations of people, but also shows modern, it is a nice mix. Beautiful imagery,takes a stab at disliking differences and describes how everyone is wonderful and different.
This is a book about different people around the world.
This book can be used in a math lessons by looking at the different people that there are in the classroom. The class can collect data about the people in their class. Some of the data can include eye color, hair color, height, languages spoken, where people live, where people are from, etc. The class can make charts and graphs to display this data.
This book can be used in a math lessons by looking at the different people that there are in the classroom. The class can collect data about the people in their class. Some of the data can include eye color, hair color, height, languages spoken, where people live, where people are from, etc. The class can make charts and graphs to display this data.
Definitely not a read-aloud picture book, but I would love to have this as my kids get older. There are SO many things to look at on each page. Being a child that always had to choose my favorite of things, I would have loved this book. From choosing which of the different houses I would have wanted to live in, to what nose I would want...the hours I would have spent pouring over this book!
This book is amazing. It shows so much diversity in so many things. The only thing is that there is a page that shows traditional dress from different cultures that is only worn for special occasions, but the book makes it sound like the clothing is common for every day. This sort of thing can lead to stereotypes. Nonetheless, the book is entirely worth checking out.
Two different people gave us this book for Meg's birthday. (We donated one to her school.) I read it to her last night, and she had many questions. Probably the most intelligent discussion we've ever had following a book. And this morning, I found her looking at the page on ASL, and trying to imitate the letters.
I had this one on the book shelf before my oldest child was born - not wanting to miss one chance to introduce him to diversity, acceptance and tolerance. It is a book for all ages and stages. The details in the artwork are great and the message is wonderful. Our tattered copy proves this one to be a very well loved book.
Jun 12, 2008
Emily
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people into people.
Recommended to Emily by:
Grandma sent it!
Shelves:
children-s-lit
I loved this book as a kid and read/studied it until the pages fell out. It has great, detailed illustrations celebrating the diversity of the people on this planet.
There is a page where white villagers are pointing and making fun of people dressed like native aborigines...and then a picture of the "natives" pointing at the odd white people. That cultural relevancy was so curious to me as a kid--not all people think the same things are beautiful. Normal is different for everyone.
I use to cry w...more
There is a page where white villagers are pointing and making fun of people dressed like native aborigines...and then a picture of the "natives" pointing at the odd white people. That cultural relevancy was so curious to me as a kid--not all people think the same things are beautiful. Normal is different for everyone.
I use to cry w...more
This book provides a great platform for discussion of differences and diversity in the world. My boys really enjoyed looking at all the different little drawings. There is so much crammed into each illustration that they spent a half hour just looking at the pictures.
This is the first and greatest book I ever read; a beautiful sentiment beautifully illustrated. I'm pledging here to buy it for every one of my friends' firstborns, even if that makes me the lame-gift aunt -- it'll be a $10 investment in our shared humanity.
Had this book as a child, and after experiencing first-hand how the chinese education system treats students in the class room, and other cultures academically, who are different (making Jim Crow laws in the US look like a liberal's utopia), and how such vestiges of said attitude still occuasionally appear in my wife, this will be a corner stone of my own children's upbringing.
يستخدم الصور ليعطي نظرة قريبة على الناس حول العالم والاختلافات فيما بينهم
لون البشرة- رسمة العين - شكل الأنف
لغاتهم وبعض عاداتهم.. وغيرها
لون البشرة- رسمة العين - شكل الأنف
لغاتهم وبعض عاداتهم.. وغيرها
My son and I read this book as a part of Sonlight's P4/5 curriculum. I have fallen in love with this book. There are so many illustrations and so much detail, I wish we had read this over the course of a week instead of at one sitting. Also, I found it a bit difficult to read aloud. We read and looked at illustrations of different types of dwellings, clothing, pets, looks, and much more. The large size is perfect for the illustrations. We also saw examples of different alphabets, including sign...more
Dec 07, 2010
Jasmine Roberson
added it
great big large book about people all over the world. i dont think they left anything out, literally. this book is great when talking about cultures and people around the world.loved it and this book could be broken up for diffrent lessons
I read this to my son for school. A very detailed, yet simple children's book about all the people of the world. The fascinating illustrations will probably make this book a favorite to read over and over again. :)
The title of this book is very fitting because it provides a lot of facts about people all over the world. I found this book to be very interesting. Kids can learn a lot about different cultures from this book.
This book celebrates the differences of people from many different perspectives. The illustration of Adam and Eve in their birthday suits, however will cause an uproar. Beautiful celebration of our differences.
I wish I'd had this book in the house as a kid. It's probably a little un-PC by current standards in the way that it places judgment (some people are good and others are not), but that's part of why it's so useful - it acknowledges that people all over the world are different and illustrates almost systematically all different kinds of bodies, faces, hair, homes, traditions, and games around the world. What I like is that it has darkness to it - it discusses poverty and death in a really straigh...more
Apr 30, 2013
Steve Boman
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
food,
compassion,
counting,
diversity,
family,
friendship,
love,
multicultural,
music,
picture-book,
religion
Amazing for teaching our children the core idea of diversity and learning to embrace the fact that all of us are different in our own ways - and that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!
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Apr 19, 2011 05:24pm